Back on the pod for what has become an annual Holiday tradition just like Turkey and egg nog, Eric Morris, Managing Director and Head of Retail for Google Canada, joins me on the mic, sharing the kind of insights that retailers need to know from a trusted partner whose hand is on the pulse of the zeitgeist of our times.
Back on the pod for what has become an annual Holiday tradition just like Turkey and egg nog, Eric Morris, Managing Director and Head of Retail for Google Canada, joins me on the mic, sharing the kind of insights that retailers need to know from a trusted partner whose hand is on the pulse of the zeitgeist of our times. Oh, and we talk about AI and retail!
Here is Google Trends.
About Eric
Eric Morris is the Managing Director of Google's Retail practice in Canada, leading sales, operations, research, strategy and analytics. Eric joined Google in 2002. As one of Google’s first hires globally, he played a critical role in building and scaling Google’s business globally, holding several leadership and executive roles along the way. Prior to his current role, Eric led Google Canada's search and performance advertising business, ran Automotive and Financial Services practices, and launched Google’s mobile advertising business in Canada. In 2016 Eric was named inventor and issued a patent in the United States for identifying rising search queries and trends at scale for advertisers worldwide. Eric has served on the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada’s board of directors since 2009, including a two-year term as board Chair beginning in 2015. Born in Montreal and raised in Toronto, Eric is a graduate of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.
Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2023 for the third year in a row.
Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Canada's top retail industry podcast_,_ The Voice of Retail. He produces and co-hosts Remarkable Retail with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world.
Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers.
Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America.
Eric Morris 00:05
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. My name is Michael LeBlanc, and I am your host. This podcast is produced in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Back on the pod for what has become an annual holiday tradition just like turkey and eggnog. Eric Morris, Managing Director and Head of retail for Google Canada joins me on the mic sharing the kinds of insights that retailers need to know from a trusted partner whose hand is on the pulse of the zeitgeist of our times.
Welcome back, Eric to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing my friend?
Eric Morris 00:34
I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me again. Annual tradition.
Michael LeBlanc 00:37
Well, I was gonna say, I was gonna say it's not the holiday retail season without Eric Morris on the microphone. It doesn't feel the same to me.
Eric Morris 00:45
I'm flattered. Thank, thank you for having me.
Michael LeBlanc 00:48
Well, thanks for, thanks for coming back. Now, I can't imagine many more people that aren't known than you, as I say that right? Like a lot of people know you, but maybe not everybody. You've been on the pod, I think if you're on the podcast one more time you get an official jacket, by the way, like a smoking jacket or something.
Eric Morris 01:04
Saturday Night Live style, great.
Michael LeBlanc 01:05
Exactly. For now, for those few people who may not know who you are and what you do for a living, who are you and what do you do for a living?
Eric Morris 01:12
Yeah, I'm Eric, I work for Google. I've been here for the last 20 plus years; I joined in 2002. I've spent much of my time here working with retailers like a consulting practice, we have a team of salespeople, account managers, analysts, experts, who provide industry expertise. So, we are focused on-, our team's focus on the retail industry. We work with the large, big box retailers and grocery general merchandise online only retailers, specialty brands direct to consumer brands, Shopify, Lightspeed as tech partners as part of the broader ecosystem and we help all of these retailers drive sales online, drive sales, in stores that they have stores and help them build their brand through, whether it's Google search or YouTube and that's what I do.
Michael LeBlanc 02:03
Definitely a trusted partner over the many years. Even go back to when I was in e-commerce in the early-, in the early days. You guys were there. So, let's, you know, as I said, you're-, you're an annual guest and, and what a long kind of strange trip it's been over the past couple of years. So how do we sum up, we've seen predictable shifts from goods to experiences, we knew that was going to happen at some point, we weren't quite sure, or we didn't quite anticipate the amplification effect, I think of the rate increases that made people go to travel and they bought a lot of stuff and, you know, we're still trying to figure out COVID era impacts on our society, how we live and how we shop and where we work.
Michael LeBlanc 02:43
And, and, you know, I think that there may be a good article in the Wall Street Journal this week about something I've been thinking about, which is, you know, we you and I would know, look at the data that more people are working at home and downtowns are a little less busy and, you know, people are shopping more online because they're at home, but I also think that now that people are kind of living at home, they're buying more stuff. It's kind of almost counter narrative in other words, from the buying stuff to experiences. Can you help us with any of this, what do you see in Google data and Google trends, the Zeitgeist that is Google, what do you, what do you-, just to set the frame for sort of-, what do you think for the year and just distilling what you distill?
Eric Morris 03:23
Well, first, Michael, you're, you're right, there's been a lot of change that we've all had to deal with as an industry. It's always been an industry that's changing and dynamic and competitive, but it's been a lot these last few years from COVID, and store closures, you know, people buying different, different things, different needs during the pandemic, the rise of e-commerce supply chain issues, a very changing economic climate. I distinctly remember having two conversations during peak COVID. So, I feel like it's 2020, 2021, I reached out to two industry experts who I admire and trust, asked for their predictions. what's to come in retail. The first one said we were one variant away from buying everything online, permanently.
Eric Morris 04:10
So that was expert number one, expert number two said he thinks that everything will go back exactly the way it was. So, two people who said two, you know, very, very different things. And I think, you know, I think if we were to reflect on those statements, you know, we've probably landed somewhere in between. There have been some changes that have been very durable, and some that are not where we did go back to the way it was. You know at Google, we spend a lot of time sifting through really, really interesting insights on how Canadians search this aggregate data among Canadians. It's not personalized.
Eric Morris 04:45
We don't know who searches what, but for a country really, really interesting things in terms of what people search for what videos they watch, and we can spot these trends, and these are the trends that retailers are interested in about their consumers, their shoppers, their potential customers, their competition that the products and categories that are surging, that are dropping. Loyalty is something that's been really, really interesting for us to track, right, are people more or less loyal to brand when they have new needs, do they go to the trusted brands and the places they shopped before, are they more open minded to shopping in different places, how do we think about price versus finding like the best things or, you know, that's a really interesting dynamic to why not-
Michael LeBlanc 05:30
I have an idea and bounce this idea off you. Yeah, I've called it-, I've called it cash flow shopping. So the consumers are a, you know, a segment of consumers who are looking for value based on what they have to spend this week. So they may be able to find a better per unit value by buying a whole lot more spending more, but they're, they're kind of focused on what I have to spend this week not-, so in other words, like running their household, like on cash flow, versus like on, you know, forecasts, you know, that kind of nuanced change in behavior, for example, could drive more, more people into the dollar stores, we've seen the dollar stores grow. So just kind of a thought for your-, for you to ruminate on.
Eric Morris 06:12
Yeah, look, it's a-, it's a really, really interesting dynamic. I mean, everyone wants to know, like, what are the big trends, what's new. And the truth is, a lot of these things are, you know, customer and retailer specific, we see a rise in discount-related searches this year. We've also seen a 20% increase in luxury-related searches. These things are happening at the same time and some shoppers may fit squarely into like-, one of those categories over the others, but I think most shoppers, it's-, sort of it depends on what they're looking to buy.
Eric Morris 06:44
It's the same reason that you may find like a luxury car in the parking lot of a No Frills, so there are some things that we splurge on some-, some things that we want to save on like in general merchandise, people want to save on electronics and flat screen TVs, and home improvement products, we don't want to save on things related to our kids and Baby, you don't buy the cheapest car seat. We're far less price sensitive to things as it relates to, you know, children and kids, because there are other considerations beyond just price.
Michael LeBlanc 07:14
And you get hit so interesting, because you can, you can peel that out of the data, as you said, this bifurcation of searches right one for value one for, for luxury. Let's-, let's dive into holiday. So we're in it. I mean, this-, we're-, folks are listening to this-, we're recording a bit before, but folks are listening to this on Black Friday. So, we are in Black Friday. We're in the week-.
Eric Morris 07:36
It’s-
Michael LeBlanc 07:37
It's on as you said, Now, you know, we've talked about past years, and you've got some data to, thing to share about when people start and what are your thoughts on, on how to win coming out of Black Friday and there's, there's still opportunity, what do you think?
Eric Morris 07:50
There is and I think, you know, for-, for many, many years, I think retailers focused on well, you know, online, at least it was Cyber Monday, that was the digital day. Then it was Black Friday, right, these like American traditions that we brought to Canada and then it was like the cyber five, which starts with the Thursday before Black Friday goes right through the Friday the weekend, you know, and the Monday and what we've saw, you know, before COVID, and certainly through the pandemic is retailers trying to spur that shopping much, much earlier, right, pulling the deals forward, right, the Black Friday, and the Cyber Friday fliers and promotions coming out much, much earlier and we've seen that play out every single year, this year was no different.
Eric Morris 08:32
So, it's less about like, cyber day, cyber five, it really is like nine or 10 weeks of elevated shopping. So, as we sit here today, as we record this, right, retailers have been trying to build that drumbeat and increase that momentum of shopping activity, front loading deals trying to get people to shop earlier and so that momentum continues to build, you know, as listeners or are listening to this today. What they should know is that those big days are still really important. So hopefully those retailers that built the momentum writing into the big days, you really, really want to win, right, those, those peak days and so, you know, it starts with like, winning the Friday, the weekend, the Monday.
Eric Morris 09:15
But a really important message that we share with retailers is you know, shopping doesn't end on cyber-, on Cyber Monday, right. There's heightened and elevated shopping that continues throughout that first week of December and right through Boxing Day still, it's not some like, antiquated Canadian thing, people continue to shop. We see more clicks to retailers’ websites from Google, two weeks after cyber week than we saw like the two weeks prior to cyber week. The weeks that follow remain very, very important. Consumers are still looking for deals, gifts for themselves or gifts for others and those are really, really important sales for retailers to win in those nine days and weeks of the holiday shopping period.
Michael LeBlanc 09:53
It's a super interesting point because a lot of retailers tell me that this this what they've called the trough of death after Black Friday, right or after Cyber Monday and I think what you're talking about is a dynamic that is also driven on shipped delivery order by dates for e-commerce and I'm wondering if that's going to change over the course of time as more and more retailers off-, offer fast in store, pickup, you know what I mean? Like, I think there's a lot of activity in e-commerce after, you know, early December, because you want to make sure and get it delivered in time and then I don't know, maybe-
Eric Morris 10:27
Yeah, that's a really interesting point. So, you know, flashback to those, you know, traumatic, you know, weeks, months, years of COVID. You know, in 2020, as we were all shopping a lot online and stores were closed, there was genuine concern that Canada Post and FedEx and others wouldn't be able to deliver all of the packages that people were buying for the holiday season. I mean, one of the things that emerged from COVID, one of the durable changes was that our infrastructure in this country got better. We are able to deliver packages, it's cheaper, we can get it faster, that like last date of shipping has been pushed out for many retailers and we can do so like reliably, so which is great because extended the e-commerce shopping period, which is great.
Eric Morris 10:27
At the same time, during the pandemic, we saw that rise of curbside pickup, right? It's that best of both worlds all of the wonderful things about shopping online, but with the certainty that you can get your gift, right, the benefit of not having to wait a day or two, but you can just drive to like the nearest store that's five or 10 minutes away from you, right and again, has like made digital more valuable. It's not just shopping online buying online, but you can shop online pickup in store, and that too, has extended right, that shopping period and that, that moment of influence that digital has not just online, but in store.
Michael LeBlanc 11:44
You know, measured in one way, e-commerce numbers are kind of flatlining. If you look at again measured in one way you've got all kinds of different more robust measures and it doesn't really think-, I don't think it really reflects what's actually happening. So, talk about the role of digital in-, in sales and maybe asking you about ecommerce numbers, flatlining or up, down or sideways is even asking you the wrong question directly. What do you-, what do you see in your data and what's your perspective?
Eric Morris 12:12
Well, I think the data in Canada would say that while we are not at the COVID highs in terms of e-commerce as a percentage of-, of retail sales in this country, we are above pre COVID levels and above that historical trendline. So, e-commerce did go up in this country, that was a durable change, slightly different story than the US and other markets where it reverted back to historical levels. So, you know, that e-commerce change, you know, is here to stay, but I think the more important question you sort of alluded to, it is the role that digital plays not just in terms of e-commerce, but in terms of total retail impact.
Eric Morris 12:50
And one of the mistakes we can make as an industry is equating digital solely to e-commerce and not thinking about the total economic value that it delivers to retailers both online and in stores. We did this to ourselves, and you would remember it from your earliest days working with-, with and at retailers, right. E-commerce and digital was owned by a digital team who managed the website who managed the e-commerce. They had an e-commerce scorecard, their bonus is based on e-commerce and frankly, get no credit for the impact that they have in-store.
Eric Morris 13:21
The retailers we work with those who have stores know, and when they measure these things, and we help them try to measure the impact know that there's orders of magnitude greater impact in-store from digital, many retailers see more revenue generated from the online ads regenerating in-store sales and what they're seeing through e-commerce, right, digital really is that gateway to all commerce, not just e-commerce and it's a really, really important point. We've siloed ourselves; we've pigeonholed digital to strictly be sort of a focus on e-commerce, that's a mistake and we're still trying to sort of undo, right those sins of like-, or, you know, organizational design and like incentives that were, you know, set up probably in, you know, 2000 or 2002.
Michael LeBlanc 14:08
Less, I can't have you on the mic without talking about it doesn't seem like it's right any more to talk about when you can't say retail without saying AI in the middle of it. So, our you are, how can the listeners, how can retailers take advantage of AI has predictive power and win in the online advertising game and you know, is there-, is there a play there? I think there's a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes, but what's your advice and what's your perspective about something new that retailers can take advantage of?
Eric Morris 14:36
You know, it's really interesting because I'm not sure we use the word AI on, on last year's holiday podcast and it just-, we use other words, we may have talked about automation or machine learning, other technical innovation, but you know, AI wasn't talked about now this year 2023 It's all everyone wants to talk about and you have some really, really smart people who you, you know, are equating innovations in AI to like the invention of the wheel, or to fire, or to electricity. So, it's going to have a profound impact on everything we do in our, on our small little world of retail and marketing. One of the things I've observed is that, you know, there's this future that will come with AI, and it's really, really exciting. We're going to innovate in a responsible way and there's going to be a lot of great innovation to come, but in the marketing world, I think that is where you can leverage AI immediately to drive, to drive business impact and I think some of the ways retailers do that with us today, it starts with being able to predict demand, right, so retailers are very interested in you know, how many yoga pants am I going to sell this summer.
Eric Morris 15:50
And when is it going to start to spike in the fall and what should I expect to sell, you know, during cyber five in the holiday period, and how does that impact my marketing, my pricing my inventory, so being able to, like use it for predictive purchases, based on how people search, search on Google or search on a retailer site, but being able to literally predict demand and so that is like one area where we spend a lot of time working with retailers, you know, the placement of media historically, marketers spend a lot of time allocating budgets between search and video and display ads, and all sorts of other things. Increasingly, that is all automated.
Eric Morris 16:30
So, a retailer will say this is my goal. I want an ROI of five to one, when I spend $1. In ADS, I need to make $5 online, or I need to make $10 online and in-store. Increasingly, the media placements all automated, powered by AI, a retailer sets a goal and then Google's machines will allocate, is it a search ad, a display ad, a YouTube ad, right, based on the goal that the marketers set, and our ability to predict, who's seeing the ad, what's their propensity to buy, and what's that worth to the retailer. There's a lot of innovation on the creative side of the space, right. I've heard AI described, and you know, whether it's GPT, or Bard, it's almost like a calculator for creatives, right.
Eric Morris 17:10
So being able to automatically create ads, automatically being able to create videos, right, and being able to do this quickly, more cost, effectively increasing the marketers speed to marketing, being able to test different versions, but we're seeing a tremendous impact on the creative side of advertising as well and that the last point, and I sort of touched on it a minute ago is this ability to optimize towards total sales. So, retail remain siloed. You have digital teams focused on digital, you have CEOs and CFOs, and chief merchants who are thinking about, right, the total sales that are generated from marketing, both online and in store.
Eric Morris 17:47
AI is the tool retailers can use right to dial up and down the marketing and direct it at the most profitable customer, the customer most likely to buy, again, whether it's online or in store. So being able to optimize marketing, not just to e-comm sales, but to total sales, that's a real innovation. It's been hard to do. We're supercharging it with machines, and we're really excited to be able to deliver that value to retailers who have stores.
Michael LeBlanc 18:13
Yeah, it is. It's exciting days, I had someone describe-, I thought that was very wise. They said, Listen, you talked about AI's role in creative and said, Listen, it's not going to, it's not going to you know, it's going to take a creative team and bring everyone up to the top creative level, which I thought was a really interesting perspective. In other words, it itself without talent doesn't make breakthrough creative, but everyone can make breakthrough creative easier with tools and likewise, I think they might find everyone can really get the most out of-, out of Google. Thanks to-, thanks to AI I don't think this is the last time we're going to talk about AI by the way, I think I'm going to have you back on.
Eric Morris 18:52
It's, you know, I, well said. It's a tool. My advice to people I work with here because we're still learning, you know, as we go and to others, is like, to try and use an AI tool in your day-to-day job at least once every day.
Michael LeBlanc 19:08
Yeah.
Eric Morris 19:09
Summarize a document, write an email, generate an image, try something just to see how it works. It's not, it's not perfect and it's, it's like a lot of early innovation. It's not going to get you 100% of the way there, but I think it's incumbent on all of us to lean into this innovation, understand what it does well, what it can't do well yet. Try and save yourself some time trying to increase your speed to market and get familiar with these tools. Actually, just using the tools is a competitive advantage today.
Michael LeBlanc 19:43
You've mentioned video a couple times you've mentioned YouTube so let's talk about that big environment you know full length, whether it's full length or whether it's shorts, you know, for retailers it's can be messy, it's sometimes hit and miss, I was on a I was watching a video yesterday I had never seen this a billion downloads was a, you know, a billion downloads on a on a video and, you know, we talked about retailers needing to expand and get into video but you know, I talked to retailers and make a video they put it out there and you know 50 people see it, what is their, what are your three top tips to retailers about getting involved in video and, and how to win in the video-game on, on whether it's YouTube full length, or what do you do, what do you do?
Eric Morris 20:25
Well, I preface it by just reminding the audience like this is really important and if you look at sort of the history of shopping online, you know, browsing buying, you know, historically it was like a almost like spearfishing like you know what you wanted to buy and it was just about, you know, where can I get the lowest price delivered to me, the quickest, and it was like this very, like functional and in some ways like cold experience. I think what we've observed with the rise of video is-, is it's allowed shopping to be like more immersive, more inspiring, more entertaining, taking advantage of like sight, sound and motion and it works like 70% of Canadians have said that they've bought something is the result of watching, you know, a video online, whether it's YouTube or other platforms, we see lots of great content, you know, whether it's like product reviews, unboxing.
Eric Morris 21:14
Last year, we've seen the 35% increase in shop with me videos like these shopping hauls, and just like people watching other people shopping, seem-, seems strange, but something like-, a lot of people do and watch. I think you're right to focus on the creative side of things because one of the mistakes we've made, you know, at Google is we talk about, you know, AI and machine learning, and a lot of it's on like the formats and the targeting and reaching the right person, but the creative, the actual creative is probably the most important part of the equation, I mean, starts with like having a good brand and like good brands, all other things being equal, strong brands outperform brands that aren't as strong and so make sure you have a brand and that resonates with people and it looks good, and it's featured prominently.
Eric Morris 22:01
That's a mistake we see retailers make; they don't feature the brand that they have as prominently as they should in the video. You need like a call to action, like what do you want people to do, and it can't just be like, buy now shop now like in the earliest days, there needs to be a more compelling reason to encourage people to buy, whether it's like the pricing availability, the delivery time, the service, whatever it may be. So, make sure there's a compelling call to action. Keeping it simple, like focusing on those one or two sort of hero products that you're selling is really important, especially during the holiday season.
Eric Morris 22:33
Don't just stuff a video with lots of stuff, like less is more in terms of the, the actual creative and the products that you're featuring and like Lastly, like, like I was saying with AI there's, there's a competitive advantage to being agile to experimenting to not just trying to like learn at the end of the campaign. But what can you learn like mid campaign from how are you measuring success? What are things that you can do while it's underway to make it perform better, make sure you're measuring something that you're-, you're clear on what the goals are, in order for it to be effective. So, like agility, measurement are probably the last two things that I would emphasize to ensure that you have like-, a-, an effective video strategy that reaches shoppers, builds your brand and generates sales.
Michael LeBlanc 23:18
Great advice from someone who knows, now I need some other advice from you. I increasingly doubt the metrics I'm seeing from Stats Canada on e-commerce and retail in general, they're not capturing, you know, the China factory direct retailers. They are not even capturing Amazon and Wayfair, at least in the e-commerce numbers and the more we go, the farther we go on. I think the numbers are just becoming hard to fathom and I think you've got perhaps a better handle, even from your perspective on a lot of this stuff. How are you thinking about growth in e-commerce. I mean, Stats Canada says yeah, it's kind of flatline, but you know we know, we see some of these China factory direct retailers be planking you know, the number one or number two or number three downloaded app and yeah, you know, the numbers don't make sense to me, and I think there's a gap there. What's your perspective on that and how do we think about where these numbers really, really are from your perspective?
Eric Morris 24:17
Well, I think you're right, the-, the numbers have-, have never made any sense in this country and I think many of us are flobbing without like-, the right instrumentation and that-, that's a problem. You know, what I will say is this like, like, I don't I don't have the exact number. Nobody does, but I don't think it really matters in that I think we all agree that it's bigger than what's reported. It's just a matter of like, how much bigger and how much more important it is, you know, as we talked about earlier, it's really important to think about like digital as more than just, you know, e-commerce you know, whether it's like 80/20 or 70/30 or 50/50 or 80/20 in some categories, right, the point is that digital, you know, it's influencing sales that occur not just online, but, but in-store. So, let's like not sort of lose sight of that bigger picture.
Eric Morris 25:09
With respect to the-, the retailers that you mentioned. You know, I want to share, I'll share an interesting anecdote in 2018-, 2017, 2018, we met with the CEO of one of the largest retailers in the country and I remember asking, you know, what kept the CEO up at night, what other retailers were they nervous about and the CEO listed off a whole bunch of retailers, all of which were other traditional brands, with stores, nascent e-commerce, presidents, never mentioned Amazon once and we used to hear that a lot in 2016, '17, even 2018, Canadian retailers really, really underestimated Amazon and I would liken it to like frogs boiling in water in those earliest days and it really set Canadian retail back and it was really only during the pandemic, where Canadian retailers up their investment, their focus on digital was like the pandemic was that forcing function to drive the right focus and investment on digital, which was good.
Eric Morris 26:18
But we had a conversation with a large retailer just a few weeks ago, talking about Shein, and Temu and it really reminded me of that 2017, 2018 conversation. In the meeting, this Canadian retail executive pulled up Temu's website and was shocked at their assortment and their prices.
Michael LeBlanc 26:37
Yeah.
Eric Morris 26:37
It's like that executive had never visited their site before.
Michael LeBlanc 26:42
Yeah.
Eric Morris 26:42
And it's something that we get asked a lot of questions about from some who are curious, and that's great, but I think the more concerning thing is we have many retailers who aren't asking those questions, and are frankly unaware of how big some of these other global brands and marketplaces and emerging retailers have become and I think it's very, very concerning and as a country, it's important that we don't make the same mistake. We don't underestimate, right, these emerging competitors. Let's give them credit. Let's understand how big they've become and let's understand what our competitive advantage is to fight back and defend share or win share against them.
Michael LeBlanc 27:25
Well stated, from someone who's been in the industry a long, long time, so why is advice thanks for that. Now, last question, where do folks go to get in touch with you or go to find out great information that your-, you and your people put out? Where do we get in touch and where do we tap in all these insights?
Eric Morris 27:47
Well, anyone can connect with me on-, on LinkedIn and I'm happy to point people in the right direction. If they have questions on any of the ideas or stats that I've discussed today, I think Google is a really, really good resource. Case studies, newsletters, stats, research, it is one of my go-to sources and not just because I work here, it's, it's, it's a wealth of information on this industry, other industries, which frankly, retailers can learn a lot from and like broader digital trends and transformation. So, if-, if you're listening, and you're not already signed up with think with Google bookmark, and sign up for the newsletters, please do it's really, really good content.
Michael LeBlanc 28:32
Well, like I said, this is not a year for me without talking to you, my friend. We've both done this in person, we've done it remotely, but any which way you and I have a conversation, I always learn something and it's always interesting. So, thanks for joining me once again on the mic to talk about retail and e-commerce and all those great things and I wish you continued success and health and all that great stuff for your family and a great holiday season ahead for both you and all your clients as well. So once again, thanks for joining me on the pod.
Eric Morris 29:07
Thanks as always for having me and happy holidays to you too.
Michael LeBlanc 29:09
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already followed on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically each week and be sure to check out my other retail industry media properties, the Remarkable Retail podcast with Steve Dennis, and the Global E-Commerce Leaders podcast.
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, senior retail advisor, keynote speaker, Rethink Retail 2023 Global Top Retail Influencer. If you want more content or to chat, follow me on LinkedIn.
Safe travels everyone!
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
retailers, commerce, people, retail, shopping, buying, ai, digital, store, year, work, google, creative, innovation, week, cyber, shoppers, podcast, earliest days, online